Hi everyone from Sydney!! First up,a huge THANK YOU to all those who take the time to post: I%26#39;ve learnt HEAPS, %26amp; have changed our itinerary significantly as a result!
Secondly, fyi: i have also posted this on the CA forum, so forgive me if i am doing the wrong thing by posting here also, but our trip covers east %26amp; west coast, so we need advice all around:=)
The 4 of us (sons 8 %26amp; 11), self %26amp; husband, have 4 weeks in the US in Sep/Oct %26amp; want to see as much as we can without going crazy with all the internal flights :=) Here is our draft itinerary:
Sep 16 - 19: SF: Alcatraz, general touristy things, walk the GG bridge, etc. Accom short-list: Del Sol; Parc55, Cowhollow
Sep 19 - 25: fly to LA: Disneyland (3days-ish, park-tripper ticket); Universal, Hollywood, couple of ';easy days'; in between. Accom: HoJo or Candy Cane
Sep 25: Fly to L.Vegas in afternoon
Sep 26: Hire car in a.m. %26amp; drive to Grand Canyon to see sunset/sunrise. Accom alrdy booked at Maswik :=))
Sep 27: Day at GC, then drive back to LV (dont want to see anything other than ';city lights';, but figure its easier to stay o/night)
Sep 28 - Oct 2: Fly to NYC. Big Apple Greeter; Ground 0; Empire SB; Liberty; Baseball game at YS; etc etc :) Accom: ??!
Oct 2: Fly or Amtrak to Buffalo
Oct 3: Niagara Falls, then fly to DC
Oct 3 - 7: DC... White House, Spy Museum, Air/Space Museums, everything else :=))
Oct 7 - 8; fly Orlando ONLY for KSC and (hopefully!) Atlas rocket launch :) so no theme parks here
Oct 9: fly back to LA, stay at/near Airport
Oct 10 - 12: (Amtrak?)day trip to SD for legoland etc. anything else in LA, then back to Sydney
PHEW!!!! Is it TOO much? We really really want to see Disneyland for the boys, Niagara, GC, and they are Space-mad, so KSC %26amp; the DC museums are a must
My questions for the Orlando experts (apart from any general comments please!: if the Atlas launch goes ahead (i understand they are frequently rescheduled) a good viewing place looks like Jetty Park, right? Is the Radisson (Astronaut Blvd) a good place to stay, so we%26#39;d just drive to Jetty Park?.. Can you also see well from KSC itself (bearing in mind it is not a shuttle,so launches from C. Canaveral) .. thanks a ton in advance.... ozzkazz
KSC: rocket-viewing and more ...
Any of those places will work... keep in mind traffic will be horrendous.
I can see it from my house in Orlando, so if you%26#39;re anywhere near the coast you%26#39;ll see it fine... but it sounds like you want the full experience, ground shaking etc.
Personally I watch the count-down on TV, it launches... I step outside and look up, and watch it go in person. There is one scheduled for tonight at 9:20pm.
As a side note... yes I think you%26#39;re doing too much. Why do Disneyland? We have Disneyworld right here in FL. Much bigger than the one in CA.
KSC: rocket-viewing and more ...
Ok, I am just exhausted reading your itinerary can%26#39;t imagine doing it. I agree with Ladyem, if you are going to be coming the east coast to see the Space Center, I think it would be better to do Disney and Universal here. Not only is it bigger, but if memory serves they have alot here that you won%26#39;t see in California. That way you could actually be in one place for more then 3 days. You will be exhausted with all the flying and time changes. And you might even have time to check out one of the waterparks, which I am sure the kids would love.
As for the rocket launch, again I agree with Ladyem, anywhere near the coast is good. Don%26#39;t know if there are still tickets available at KSC for the launch or not, you might want to check on that.
Thanks so much to both of you, great advice!
Just some background for you: we are using our (many many years worth!) of frequent flyer points for our 4 x (Business Class) return airfares form Sydney. So this has dictated the start/end points, ie: fly Sydney -%26gt; SF, then home to Sydney from LA. So this overall path, we cannot change (we had to book 1 YEAR ahead to get these seats :-)).
Our initial idea was to take the boys to Disneyland, but as the US is such a fabulous place for ';stuff to see';, and we are coming all that way, we figured we%26#39;d try %26amp; see as much as we reasonably could. That said, I do agree with everyone saying we are doing too much...
Your suggestion to skip LA for the theme parks would save a lot of transfer-time for sure... My only 2 concerns are (1) I鈥檝e checked out the forum on DL vs. WDW, and the cost of the Hotels (ie: mainly within WDW) may be significantly higher, right?. And (2) our boys are lego-addicts, and apart from a DW store, Orlando does not have a legoland, am I right?... so I would still need to fit in a day trip to San Diego from LA, on the last couple of days before we fly home. I have posted a Q on the CA site asking for suggestions on this also鈥?
Re KSC %26amp; the Rocket launch : we didn鈥檛 book tickets, as we are unable to extend our stay if it is re-scheduled. Our plan was to see KSC regardless, and if the launch goes ahead on the 8th, we would do KSC on EITHER another day, OR if we can see the launch (without tickets) from the grounds of KSC as part of our ';normal'; day-visit, then we would do that鈥?is this reasonable? ..
Ladyemm, you step outside and see a rocket launch ?? 鈥?jealous :) 鈥?when you say traffic is horrendous: that was the idea behind us staying on Astronaut Blvd, sort-of near Jetty Park.. so we would not have far (%26lt;2 miles?) to go to see the launch 鈥?or have I lost the plot on this?
And finally 鈥?what do you think if we leave out Niagara ? .. thanks heaps once again鈥? ozzkazz...
